The Columbus Board of Education voted unanimously last night to waive the district's right to attorney-client privilege, allowing "transparency" by releasing private documents and conversations about altering student attendance data to the state auditor.

Bill Bush, The Columbus Dispatch

The Columbus Board of Education voted unanimously last night to waive the district’s right to attorney-client privilege, allowing “transparency” by releasing private documents and conversations about altering student attendance data to the state auditor.

Officials said the unusual step to waive the district’s privilege of their attorneys to have private conversations with employees over the record-changing scandal was done at the request of the state auditor and in the spirit of full cooperation.

No one has been subpoenaed to give testimony to the state auditor, and the district has not withheld any document that the office has requested, said Larry Braverman, the district’s general counsel.

“I can’t speak to what they’re looking at” by requesting the move, said Braverman. Superintendent Gene Harris said the move was “in the best interest of transparency.”

The board voted on waiving attorney-client privilege after a private executive session that lasted almost two hours. The waiver concerns “written or oral” communications between district employees and district attorneys to the extent they “pertain to the creation, maintenance, preservation, alteration or use of attendance records.”

The board waived only communications that occurred before Aug. 3, when the district retained outside legal counsel — the law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur — to advise it on the waiver, the resolution said.

“We brought in outside counsel to advise the board on what is a very complicated issue,” Braverman said.

Also last night, the school board began — and then stopped — the process of firing two employees for allegedly having “sexual contact on numerous occasions in the school building during school hours.”

The board added to its meeting agenda late yesterday two ordinances to begin the firing process of Jeffrey L. Poulton and Anne E. Fulkert, who were teachers last year at Yorktown Middle School at 5600 E. Livingston Ave., on the Far East Side.

Neither could be reached yesterday. Poulton was a principal in training, and Fulkert was a special-education teacher. The sexual contact was said to have occurred from October through April.

But before the board could proceed with voting to notify the two teachers of its intent to terminate their contracts, it voted to remove the two ordinances — which don’t make clear with whom the two were allegedly having sex, or whether it was with each other.

“The superintendent just said it was a mistake, that it wasn’t supposed to be in there,” board Member Mike Wiles said after the meeting. “I don’t know what the deal was.”

District spokesman Jeff Warner said he had no further information on the allegations. The resolution also had sought to suspend both employees without pay effective yesterday, and terminate their employment on Aug. 21 unless either demanded a hearing under state law.

The board also narrowly voted down by a 4-3 vote a motion by Wiles to consider removing the data-reporting function of the district from Superintendent Harris and making it a function of the internal auditor. Also, the resolution would have temporarily named board Vice President Ramona Reyes as president to conduct a discussion into board policy violations by President Carol Perkins.

The motion would have asked Internal Auditor Carolyn Smith to leave the room during the discussion. That’s because it would involve a meeting that Perkins had with Smith in which Smith accused Perkins of pressuring her to drop her ongoing investigation into data irregularities.

That meeting led state Auditor Dave Yost to warn both Perkins and Harris not to interfere with Smith’s investigation or face legal action.

Voting for the discussion were Wiles, W. Shawna Gibbs and Hanifah Kambon.

bbush@dispatch.com

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